11 Jan
2012
11 Jan
'12
10:27 a.m.
On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I don't know if it's true any longer, but
there was a time when a
college chemistry major was required to learn German, as that country
once held a commanding lead in the field..
That's because once upon a time, Germans knew how to speak and write
German, which is not really the case today. Big companies like IBM,
Siemens, Telefunken etc. all had their German vocabulary for technical
terms (e.g. Kellerspeicher ("cellar memory") for stack, or bistabile
Kippstufe ("bi-stable flipping gate") for flip-flop). Same thing in
France with Bull etc.
All of this is completely ignoring the silly attempts
of L'Acad?mie
fran?aise to " frenchify" computer terminology. Do the francophone
Quebecers follow the guidelines for computer technology set down by
L'Acad?mie? Do Frenchmen?
I'd say yes.
Interesting enough, the word 'courriel' (= courrier ?lectronique; email),
which must be used in official documents in France, is a Canadian
creation.
Christian